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A Musical Message for Children on Healthy Eating

For all her talent and determination to help children eat better, Michelle Obama could still pick up a few pointers from Helen Butleroff-Leahy, a 66-year-old former Rockette turned registered dietitian.

Ms. Butleroff-Leahy devotes her time to teaching children in disadvantaged neighborhoods about eating healthfully and exercising regularly. Her lessons take the form of musical productions, rehearsed in classrooms and on the stages of 52 New York City public schools so far. Children from each school do gymnastics and dance to a rap-based script by Roumel Reaux that entertains while explaining the essentials of good nutrition. The 45-minute production by Ms. Butleroff-Leahy is called “My Plate: The New Food Guide Musical.”

Truth be told, Ms. Butleroff-Leahy’s lessons, both nutritional and dramatic, could benefit American children in every socioeconomic group, for none are immune to the foods laden with sugar, salt and calories that pervade our society, both within and outside schools. I had the opportunity to watch her in action last month at P. S. 81 in Bushwick, Brooklyn, where enthusiastic 8-year-olds from four second-grade classes joined four professionals to proclaim the virtues of “eating for the health of it.”

Tramaine Montell Ford, a dancer who performed in the movie “Hairspray,” portrayed an angelic “bad habit breaker” intent on reforming two junk-food junkies. The actors demonstrated the stultifying effects of poor nutrition, followed by Mr. Ford’s energizing message:

You are what you eat.

You got the power, you got the might

To eat right and keep it light.

The action then focused on food groups that foster good health: grains (whole, please) for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks; vegetables (especially dark-green and orange) and fruits (all colors are nutritious and delicious) for myriad health essentials; protein (meats, beans and nuts) for the strength to get up and go; and dairy (light or skim) for strong bones.

To celebrate vegetables, for example, green-shirted youngsters danced to “Rock Around the Clock,” did cartwheels and jumping jacks and spun hula hoops, while other children in red and yellow shirts did break-dancing to Mr. Ford’s rap about 20 different vegetables, which he called “one of nature’s greatest wonders.”

Ms. Butleroff-Leahy spends three hours a week for 10 weeks in each school, devoting half an hour in each of three classes to hands-on nutrition lessons and the remaining half-hour to learning and rehearsing the musical. The school then tries to incorporate nutrition information into other lessons and lunchroom offerings. Cheryl Ault-Barker, the principal of P.S. 81, said a salad bar now competes successfully with the usual school lunch fare at her school.

Still dancer-lean with a cheerleader’s energy, Ms. Butleroff-Leahy said her mission was to help counter the city’s rising rates of childhood obesity and its sooner-or-later consequences, including Type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease. “Children learn best through active participation and repetition, both in the classroom and on the stage,” Ms. Butleroff-Leahy said.

The youngsters’ teachers and parents, many with their own significant weight issues, learn alongside the children, who bring their classroom lessons home. One mother at P.S. 81 proudly reported that she’d switched from whole milk to 1 percent, and one of the boys said he now has whole-wheat bread and oat cereal for breakfast.

The project is underwritten by the Ficalora Family Foundation in association with Ms. Butleroff-Leahy’s nonprofit company, the Nutrition and Fitness Education Initiative Inc., and is supplemented by small grants from New York State and the city’s Department of Education, which contributes $1,500 to the school. Each production, start to final applause, costs about $4,000.

Ms. Butleroff-Leahy she said she hoped to be able to bring her musical message about healthy eating and exercise to many more schools throughout the country.

Of course, hers is but one of many philanthropic projects, local and national, aimed at countering the often atrocious eating habits of children by arming them with the information and enthusiasm they need to make better food choices.

The Children’s Aid Society, for example, has a Go!Healthy initiative that sponsors an “Iron Go!Chef” competition to teach wellness with nutrition and healthy cooking programs for young children. The initiative includes a 24-week nutrition and fitness curriculum for schools and a six-week wellness program for parents that emphasizes movement, stress reduction and healthy cooking.

The Agriculture Department, which oversees school-based food programs, has recently updated the nutrition standards for school meals and is considering guidelines to ensure that the snacks and drinks available in schools also support good health.

New menus or school breakfasts and lunches became effective at the start of the current school year. They include more fruits, vegetables and whole grains, and are designed to provide nutrient-dense meals from a variety of foods in amounts that support healthy weights for children of different ages.

Students must select at least half a cup of fruit or vegetables at both lunch and breakfast. There are graduated reductions in salt and limits on saturated fats and fruit juices; milk can be only unflavored low-fat, or flavored and unflavored fat-free. Within two years, all grains served must be “whole grain-rich.”

School meals provide up to half the calories children consume, and foods that support good nutrition improve children’s behavior, performance and overall cognitive development, according to the Alliance for a Healthier Generation.

The alliance, which maintains that “schools are powerful places to shape the health, education and well-being of our children,” helps more than 15,000 schools across the country create environments that encourage healthy eating and physical activity.

But however hard schools may try, their efforts can be easily undermined by pervasive societal influences. For example, while Nickelodeon has made some improvements in the kinds of foods advertised during its television programs for children, a new analysis of food ads during 28 hours of programs by the Center for Science in the Public Interest found that “nearly 70 percent are for junk.”

“Nickelodeon congratulates itself for running the occasional public service announcement promoting physical activity, but for each of those messages it’s running 30 ads for junk food,” said Margo G. Wooten, the center’s director for nutrition policy.

The network has made improvements. In 2005, an analysis by the center found that 88 percent of food ads on Nickelodeon were for unhealthy foods, but a similar sampling in 2012 showed a decline to 69 percent, which may reflect growing pressure on the food industry to reduce marketing to children. Nickelodeon could take a lesson from junk-food-free Qubo, a block of programming for children on the ION Television network.

Or perhaps Nickelodeon’s advertising executives should sit in on one of Ms. Butleroff-Leahy’s school productions.